Empty Hand

I know trainers who poo-poo the idea of situational awareness, preferring instead to concentrate on dealing with the after-effects of being ambushed. While I understand the idea (they are, after all, firearms trainers, not zen awareness trainers), but the fact is, you win 100% of the fights you don’t get into.

I’ve some more ideas on John Farnam’s classic dictum on avoiding bad things before they happen over at Ricochet.com.

The paradigm of the personal protection/bodyguard might not be the right one for people like me who want to keep our families safe. Maybe it is all about winning by being on the attack, not on defense.

On this episode of Ballistic Radio, Melody Lauer talks about stopping the threat to our families by… stopping the threat. Not shielding our kids, not putting ourselves in between them and the line of fire and dealing with things, but making stopping the threat the priority, as that’s the safest and quickest solution for everyone involved.

*thoughtful pause*

There’s an element of truth what Melody talks about on which I need to ponder, because it squares nicely with what I’m learning about individual armed self-defense. However, I can’t help but wonder how such ideas square with the methods used by people who are paid to protect people for a living, rather than myself, who does it for free, as part of my job of being a Dad. Is their training wrong, or is it focused more on large attacks by a group on one individual, and not keeping two or three people safe from street crime or an overzealous ex-spouse?

If nothing else, this proves that the science of familial protection is not settled, but rather, it’s just beginning.

Advantages: Small size, powerful output, common battery typeDisadvantages: Confusing controlsRating: Four out of five stars.

I’ve been carrying a SigTac flashlight for a year now, and I like it because it’s bright (enough), small and it takes one AA battery. Yes, this means it isn’t as bright as an equivalent flashlight that uses CR123 batteries, but it also means I can find batteries on the Moon if need be.

However, it’s a thick flashlight, and that thickness is something that I need to deal with when I take other things out of my pockets. Sometimes, it’s not about the gadget itself, but how that gadget plays well with others. Also, I wasn’t really satisfied with the output of the SigTac light, so I started to look around for a slimmer light with a bit more candlepower.

I settled on a Thrunight Ti4 LED light. It’s powerful, easily surpassing the output of the SigTac. It’s also light, slim and becuase it looks like a pen, it doesn’t scream “I have a tactical flashlight on me!” when it’s clipped in my front pants pocket.

If I have one complaint, it’s the controls. The light has four modes: Firefly (very weak), Low (good for navigation), High (good for dazzling someone) and Strobe (good for triggering epiletic seizures). The light starts out in the dimest mode available when turned on and then the other modes are accessed by double-clicking the end cap, twisting the lens barrel or pressing and holding the end cap. It works, but it’s a bit kludgy. I’d much prefer some way to set up the light so that it starts up in my preferred mode every time I turn it on, rather than having to cycle through all the modes to get to the one I want. Also, an “emergency switch” of some sort would be nice to quickly turn on the strobe function when I need to use it stop a potential bad guy from doing me further harm.

Overall, though, for the price, it’s a great light, and definitely an upgrade from the SigTac light I had been carrying or the Streamlight MicroStream I carried before that.

Production note: As an experiment, this post was created entirely on my iPhone 6+ using an iWerks Bluetooth keyboard and the Camera+, Tilt/Shift Generator and Resize Image apps. It took me about twice as long to write than if I’d used a full-size computer, mainly because the layout of the keyboard is slightly different and toggling between browser windows is tougher on a smartphone than it is on a desktop, but I found out I can write a blog post on gear I can fit into my pockets. Cool.

Nylon mag pouch. I have no idea who made this, I think it might be a Blackhawk!.

I carry the belt gear on a Uncle Mike’s tactical instructor’s belt which I got one from my tactical subscription box and I really like it. It’s infinitely adjustable and holds my gear in-place throughout the day. I don’t carry everything I *might* need, I carry the basics of, well, everyday carry. This is bare minimum needed to keep me safe and functioning on a daily basis.

Advantages: Easy to grasp and deploy, scabbard fits almost anywhereDisadvantages: Small sizeRating: 4 out of 5

I’ve been looking for a good way to carry a self-defense knife for quite some time now. I started out carrying a CRKT Pazoda clipped to my weak-side pocket, switched to a Boker AK-74 and tried out a Kershaw Shuffle, but I never liked any of them as they were either too big and took up too much space in my pocket or too clumsy to deploy quickly.

I normally conceal my pistol with an un-tucked shirt, (Memo to Florida lawmakers: Pass open carry, and soon), so there is plenty of room around my belt line to conceal the gear that I’m already carrying, so it made sense to move my knife up from my support-side pocket to my waistline and use a knife that didn’t require an activation beyond pulling it out of a sheath.

The SOG Mini Instinct is tiny. Not small, tiny. Maybe a little too small for effective use, but I’ll need more experience with it to determine if that’s true or not.

That’s the Instinct Mini compared to the Boker AK-74 it’s replacing, and here’s one of the Mini Instinct versus a Kershaw Shuffle.

Like I said, tiny. The good things about this new knife are its scabbard, which is easily configurable to allow for carry just about anywhere on your person and its small size, making it easy to carry.

The reason I carried a knife in the support side pocket was to help with weapon retention, but carrying it up front makes more sense, as I can access the knife with equal ease with either my left or right hand. So far, the Instinct Mini has been completely inconspicuous on the front of my belt under my shirt, and feels like it’s not there at all, which is all you can ask for in an everyday carry knife.

“If you’re talking about the average person who is just trying to prepare for a combat situation, they don’t need 15 hours a week of fitness training for that. They need a lot more skills training and tactical training as opposed to getting the fitness side of things because a lot of that stuff is the brain becoming accustomed to the environment you’re in. You work out, you do intervals and then you get on the mat and roll for 3 minutes and you feel like you’re out of shape. A lot of that is because your brain is not used to the environment and doesn’t know how to handle the stressful situation.”

There’s a lot of truth there. I used to be WIPED after a four stage match, but know it’s no big deal, but know I find I’m more relaxed and more focused after I shoot a stage.

And yeah, I gotta get to the gym and get in some sort of shape that isn’t round and pear-shaped.

“Train staff on board the high speed train which was the scene of a suspected Islamic extremist attack yesterday have been accused of barricading themselves in their staffroom and locking the door, leaving passengers to fend for themselves.”

Which, fortunately, they did, thanks to some off-duty U.S. servicemen.

US airman Spencer Stone, who on board the train during the attack, spotted the 26-year-old Moroccan acting suspiciously and heard him trying to load his weapon in the toilet.

He was travelling with Oregon National Guard member Alek Skarlatos, 22, who was on leave and travelling through Europe at the time after returning from a tour in Afghanistan.

With the help of their friend Anthony Sadler, from Pittsburg, California, and fellow passenger British IT consultant Chris Norman, they managed to wrestle the attacker to the ground, stopping what could have been a deadly terrorist attack.

A U.S. airman spotted someone acting suspiciously and heard him load up an AK in the bathroom, then clobbered him as him tried to shoot up a train.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the very definition of how situational awareness should work. Kudos to Airman Spencer and all involved, and may the train staff who ran and hid be ridiculed for the cowards they are.

Between this incident and the incident in Philly, conditioning and weapons retention training have now zoomed to the top of training priorities.

I recently switched my everyday carry flashlight from a Streamlight AAA Microstream to a Sigtac STL-100. I like the extra horsepower that the SigLite puts out compared to the Streamlight, but I know there’s got to be something out there better still.

Here’s what I’m looking for:

Candlepower. I want it as bright as I can.

AA Battery. This is a must. I don’t like being dependent on batteries that I can’t buy at a convenience store in Buenos Aires.

Why do so many shooters emphasize shooting courses and turn up their noses at combatives and first aid training? I suspect most people are more likely to need to know how to use a pressure bandage or throw a punch than to need to draw their handgun in anger over the course of their lives.

Yep. Backup irons become important if you train on a square range in the daytime. Take a night-shooting class, though, and those iron sights mean NOTHING compared to a good weapon light.

Also, think about how competition affects our gear and our training: Maybe one of the reasons why there is very little integrated combatives/firearms training for us civvies is because we haven’t found a way to make a game of it yet. The Greeks figured out 3000 or so years ago that if you make a game of war, you get better at war, and USPSA and IDPA are capitalizing today on what was learned on the slopes of Mt. Olympus long ago.